Police arrested two women outside the school last month trying to sell drugs in child-size doses at child-size prices. Some of the envelopes reportedly were decorated with Pokemon figures to lure the children.

The arrests outside a school in the rough Iztapalapa barrio are a bleak aspect of efforts by Mexican and American officials to combat the drug trafficking along their common border.

There were nine busts for peddling drugs at schools in the capital in September. They come when Mexican officials are worried about dealers pushing an oversupply of cocaine in a country once known mostly as a transit point for drugs headed for the United States.

Oversupply problem worsens

Though the oversupply problem first surfaced in the mid-1990s, officials say it may have been worsened by the tightened security along the border since the Sept. 11 attacks and Mexico's redoubled efforts to crack down on drug cartels under President Vicente Fox.

Officials fear that dealers are focusing on the children to turn them into addicts or recruit them as couriers. In Acapulco, police reported last month that they were investigating at least four drug gangs for pushing cocaine on school grounds.

"What the traffickers are trying to do is open new markets with both adults and children," said Guido Belsasso, director of Mexico's National Commission Against Drugs. "And it works. If the kids like it, the dealers use them to push it on other kids."

Belsasso said the busts also are part of Mexico's improved efforts at monitoring and combating its domestic drug problem. While previous governments were loath to even admit the problem, Fox has given it more attention as he pursues a crackdown on the drug cartels.

Drug consumption rising

The amount of cocaine being pushed in Mexico rose sharply in the mid-1990s when the Colombian cartels began paying Mexican traffickers in bricks of cocaine rather than U.S. dollars. Officials believe this helped increase Mexico's abuse problems as the local traffickers tried to convert the dope into profits.

The nation's drug consumption is well below that of the U.S. but is growing, especially in urban areas. A national survey in 1998 showed a 30 percent increase in consumption over the previous three years.

Another survey indicated drug use among high school students had risen from 12 percent to 14.7 percent between 1997 and 2000.

"There are more drugs available," said Jorge Chabat, an expert on security, drugs and border issues. "It's a combination of factors, and probably 9/11 aggravated the tendency."

Last week, Mexico City's public security agency announced that special police forces had made nine sets of arrests for selling drugs to schoolchildren. In several cases, they caught dealers trying to sell "special doses" for children--1/56th of a gram for the equivalent of $1.20 to $1.80.

Iztapalapa, on Mexico City's far east side, is notorious for its transient population, lack of infrastructure, drug dealing and crime. The director of Vicente Mora school complains of assaults against teachers and of parents who come to the school stoned.

But police officials said they were surprised by the brazenness of two dealers trying to disguise themselves among the street vendors.

"They were doing it right outside the school," said Ruben Contreras, special operations director for the city's public safety department.

The school has 600 students between the ages of 6 and 12. Many of them can tell exactly where the drug dealers live in the neighborhood, what they wear and how they deliver the goods to junkies--even if they can't always remember what the white powder is called.

Hard-to-prove rumors swirl among worried parents and pupils, and some people allege that dealers have added drugs to candy and even the glue on stickers for sale on the streets.

One student, 10, described how he was approached by a drug dealer and handed a little white packet. Standing outside the school this week with his mother, he said the dealer told him: "Try this. You'll like it. The first one is free."

`We were really upset'

He said he opened the envelope and then dropped it when he saw a white powder pour out.

"I just made myself run," the boy said, fiddling with a cardboard airplane.

His mother, who asked that their names not be published, said she confronted the dealer a few days later, grabbing him and shouting at him. But afterward she became frightened and decided to stay away from the school "because no one fools with these people."

"The kids tell us that there are little packets sold with figures of Pokemon and little horses and mermaids," said Araceli Martinez Cortes, the school director. "We don't know what they put inside, but we were really upset with this situation."

She said she has asked the city to ban vendors from the streets around the school.

"My daughter asked me, `Mommy, what is [cocaine]?'" said Hilda Mendez Gonzalez, the mother of three children at the school.

"I told her never take candy from anyone. A mother doesn't have words to explain all this to her kids."